Surprise! After Secret Talks, Small Vermont City Gets Muslim MigrantsMayor wanted no public discussion of "possible links to terrorism."

The Boston Globe reported last Friday that Christopher Louras, mayor of the small Vermont city of Rutland, "has unveiled a plan, developed in near-secrecy, to resettle 100 Syrian refugees who fled the onslaught of the Islamic State and are exiled in sprawling Jordanian camps." The plan will "gradually send Rutland more Syrian refugees than are currently living anywhere else in New England." While the Globe is clearly pleased at Rutland's "instant cultural diversity for Rutland," the secrecy of the project sounded a sour note. Why should such a glorious act of "diversity" and "multiculturalism" have to be planned out in secret?

Yet instead of having a frank public discussion about the plan to bring in the migrants, according to the Globe, "months-long discussions about whether to invite the Syrians were limited to the mayor, a small circle of city and business leaders, and a nonprofit resettlement agency. The president of the Board of Aldermen, who knew about the effort, did not tell his colleagues until a day or two before Louras announced the plans at an April 26 news conference."